TANF 5th Annual Report to Congress

VI. Child Support Collections
Access and Visitation Program
Appendices

The goal of the nation’s Child Support Enforcement Program is to ensure that children are supported financially and emotionally by both of their parents.

In Fiscal Year (FY) 2001, almost $19 billion was collected for children by the Child Support Enforcement Program, an increase of six percent from FY 2000, and a 42 percent increase since FY 1997. The total collections include almost $1.6 billion in overdue child support from federal tax refunds. The Passport Denial Program collected over $5 million in calendar year 2001. There were nearly $1.6 million paternities established and acknowledged in FY 2001, an increase of 21 percent since FY 1997.

Tables 6:1-6:6 show the following for FY 2001:

With a caseload of over $17 million, over 43 percent of the total IV-D child support cases had a collection, nearly double the 22 percent achieved in FY 1997.
In FY 2001, about 68 percent of the cases with orders established reported a collection. This was a significant increase over the 38 percent achieved in FY 1997.
Nationally, about $2,550 was collected per case with a collection.
Total administrative expenditures were $4.8 billion, a 41 percent increase from FY 1997.
Of the $17.1 million child support cases, only $3.1 million are currently receiving public assistance, $6.1 million have never received public assistance, and $7.9 million formerly received public assistance. The current assistance caseload has decreased 17 percent from FY 1999 levels, and the former assistance caseload has increased seven percent from FY 1999. This shift represents a dramatic change in those being served by the program, as the vast majority of child support services are now provided to non-public assistance cases.
About 46 percent of current assistance cases had orders established and about 71 percent of former assistance cases had orders established.
The Census Bureau's Current Population Survey on Child Support indicates that 61 percent of parents who received child support payments received the full payment. The Child Support Enforcement Program does not collect information on the number of custodial parents who receive their full support.

The Child Support Enforcement Program was established in 1975 to recoup welfare payments given to needy families. Child support caseloads were predominately cases for children on Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) until the late 1980's, when legislation required States to provide services to all families that made application for child support services, not just welfare and former welfare families. The number of non-welfare families (non-TANF) receiving child support services has been showing steady growth since that time, while TANF-related cases have been declining. In FY 2001, non-TANF collections were $16.4 billion, which is a 56 percent increase from FY 1997. TANF collections were $2.6 billion in FY 2001, which is a nine percent decline from FY 1997.

Notes: In FY 1999, States started using a new form (OCSE-157) to report caseload, orders and paternities established, medical support, staffing, and other statistical information to the Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE). The new reporting form includes some of the data found on the old statistical reporting forms (OCSE-156 & OCSE-158) but also adds new information and deletes data elements that are no longer needed. Changes were made to the reporting forms to allow OCSE to meet the requirements of the new performance-based incentive funding system mandated under the Child Support Performance and Incentive Act of 1998. Some information collected before FY 1999 is not comparable to later years’ data because of this new data series. In addition, Federal auditors are assessing the completeness and reliability of State-reported data. In response, many States have improved data reporting.

A child support case is defined in terms of the parent (mother, father or putative father) who is now or eventually may be obligated under law for the support of a child or children receiving services under the title IV-D program. In general, a TANF case is defined in terms of the custodial parent or relative who is filing the TANF application. For example, if there are two children with different fathers in a TANF family, there could be two child support cases for that family. Hence in FY 2001, there were 3.1 million child support cases while the average number of TANF cases was 2.1 million.

Access and Visitation Program

The Federal Access and Visitation Program provides $10 million per year to States enabling them to encourage non-custodial parents to stay involved with their children. Each State receives from $100,000 to almost $1 million, based upon its number of single parent children, to fund mediation, education, counseling, development of parenting plans, visitation enforcement, visitation monitoring, supervised visitation, and neutral drop off and pick up services.

Appendices

	Download Excel Workbook
Table 6:1	Financial Overview for Fiscal Year 2001
Table 6:2	Statistical Overview for Fiscal Year 2001
Table 6:3	Financial and Statistical Overview for Fiscal Years 1999, 2000, and 2001
Table 6:4	Total Distributed Collections for Five Fiscal Years
Table 6:5	Administrative Expenditures for Five Fiscal Years
Table 6:6	Amount of Total Collections Per Case with a Collection for Fiscal Year 2001

Fifth Annual Report to Congress (February 2003)

VI. Child Support Collections